When Rumiana Bachvarova was just a short period into her new position as Bulgaria’s Ambassador to Israel, she went to see her compatriot Nickolay Mladenov in Jerusalem.
He took her to the Mount of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City.
“This small place is the cornerstone of all the conflicts here,” Mladenov told Bachvarova. “But see how beautiful it is.”
Mladenov was several years into his role as the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, a position historically seen as symbolic but ineffective. Previous diplomats who held the title issued statements condemning the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and…